


put honey when you write, (my dear honey)

by dhabitude



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fist Fights, Fools, Hogwarts Eighth Year, How Sweet, Howlers (Harry Potter), Love Letters, M/M, No Plot, Non-Graphic Violence, Quite sweet, anywho, dont know what was doing with that, except it's quite brief, how quaint, in context of a bday party, molly weasley send a howler, one mention of a blowjob, sex?no, she asks to be called honey and the next letter begins honey, sort of graphic depiction of injuries, they marry for some reason??, title taken from a vita/virginia letter, two boys in love, weed and alcohol mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhabitude/pseuds/dhabitude
Summary: love letter from enemies and the like
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Kudos: 24





	put honey when you write, (my dear honey)

**Author's Note:**

> this was in my drafts and i very much do not remember writing it lol

To get a letter from your arch nemesis is something romantic. This was what Ginny had said when the sleek owl (Devil, Harry knew this. Draco Malfoy had been a rather loud speaker when he was young) had dropped off a letter in his hands early September before flying back to his master.

  
"Don't." Harry huffed a little laugh, fingering the wax seal -and good god, could Malfoy be any more flaunting of his wealth or what- with one hand, the other holding a fork. 

  
Ron, from where he was shovelling bacon into his mouth next to a rather off-put Hermione but in here. "Nah, mate, Mum and Dad always thought it was well weird. You'd put bloody Malfoy over fucking Voldemort on a 'who do I hate more' list any day."

  
"He's a cunt." Harry frowned as Ginny nodded along with Ron.

  
"It got a bit worrying." She said, eyes darting from her plate to Harry, back and forth. She'd given herself a buzz cut over the summer; Luna had joined in in solidarity ("the whizzlypuffs won't have anywhere to hide, you see." She'd sighed dreamily upon seeing Harry back at school.) "Like, we honestly thought you were gonna go sod off and get yourself your own dark mark for a couple weeks in fifth, sixth."

  
Harry rolled his eyes, pocketing the letter. The soft swoops of Malfoy's writing, ever so posh, were dry and in purple ink. "I was seventeen."

  
"Exactly!" A third year walking behind Ron jumped here as he shouted, scurrying off terrified. Harry pursed his lips in an effort not to laugh. "Like, we honestly thought you were either gonna kill or fuck each other in a loo."

  
"Well," Hermione said, raising an eyebrow. They all had a problem with eyebrows and the raising of them. Harry quite liked it: if he was ever lost he'd look for those who would raise their eyebrows in sympathy, for they would make him feel safe. "It'd be best not to forget what actually happened in the men's room that year."

  
Harry hummed, the letter almost burning his thigh through the fabric of his trousers. "Great room reader, Mione. Really."

  
Ginny tittered and Ron guffawed, slapping a greasy hand on his girlfriend's shoulder, who merely rolled her eyes, lips twitching. "You're all insufferable. Mind you, Malfoy sent me and Ron a letter over break too. Apologies and everything. All very formal."

  
"Ah, must be it then." Harry nodded and ignored the way Hermione's eyes narrowed, for he knew exactly what the letter contained.

_Potter,_ the letter in his pocket read,  
_Mother never would tell me about the forest, but I've asked many a time._  
_When the giant walked out with you in his arms, I was scared. The almighty Harry Potter, befallen by something as plebeian as a killing curse? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I thought your side had lost, that's why I went over to him._  
_It's no excuse for running away like a coward but, well, I'd like to brush it off as being in my blood, (I'm sure you like it when I bash my father, don’t you Potter?) and be gone of it. And I would be, I assure you, if that foul man hadn't touched me. Honestly, it's disgusting, so vile, to be touched by someone like that. I've seen those hands kill, I must remind you once again, seen them tear apart someone limb by limb with a jaunty twitch. And he touched me with them, showed me care. I would rather of been vermin._  
_And this, this I entrust to you and you alone, Potter, do you understand? So if you go running off to the Ministry, god forbid, I will stamp on your nose yet again. I've felt them tear people apart, been out of my body while he was in it. He used the imperius so much sometimes I forgot where my body ended and his began. (And, oh, how romantic that sounds, imagine me as a fifteen year old girl, Potter, just for a mere moment.) It was anything but romantic though, Potter, let me tell you that. It always felt cold, so cold. This will be the only time I ever say this, let me tell you, Potter, but you impress me. Overcoming that curse with ease._  
_Mother won't tell me her version of the forest, and so I thank you for telling me yours. Father would've killed you immediately, had he been the one to check. A mother's love, huh, Potter?_  
_,DM_

Harry had received an apology letter, yes, on his birthday. He had opened it in the privacy of his room, long after everyone had gone to sleep with his body still buzzing from alcohol and weed George had somehow procured. He blamed this for writing back, absolutely nothing else. It wasn’t that he liked the feel of the heavy paper in his hands, or the elegance of the writing. No, he wasn’t some fifteen year old with raging hormones and a crush. No, he was a saviour, an eighteen year old who'd already achieved greatness. Who's to care if he wrote a mere letter to someone he hated: it's bad etiquette to leave letters unresponded to, someone had told him this, he swears.

 _malfoy,_ he had written back,   
_thanks for the letter. it's my birthday. I think im high, maybe, I dunno, but I had some for the first time today. not like you, I know you and nott and zabini (zabini???) used to smoke it by the lake. it stunk. anyway. thanks_  
_harry potter, birthday boy_

Ron and Hermione and Neville and anybody else who's opinion he cared about didn’t know of course, of this unlikely dalliance (malfoy had used this; he didn’t know what it meant, really), this exchanging of letters between childhood enemies. Neither party acknowledged it, even as they were sat together in potions, even as they kissed against a metal knight during a Halloween party, even as they learnt that the spell to turn them to protect the school was actually quite hard to undo, and had stumbled down a cold, stone hallway, the warmth between them searing and a knight thumping along after. Even as Harry took Zacharias Smith in a fistfight for daring to throw a stunner at Malfoy in the hallways, leaving with a fistful of hair lost and a broken arm, grinning at Smith, who had half the skin of his face missing and three broken ribs (Harry had a thing for biting, it seemed, for he had skin stuck in his teeth for quite a few hours.)

  
Even when he received a howler from Molly Weasley, for Malfoy's owl had come a day late, whilst Harry was on the train to Hogwarts after Christmas break.  
"He is not welcome, Harry!" Her voice was loud, grief-stricken and angry. "Do you understand me? Just because he, what was it, 'sucked you off behind the one eyed witch' does not mean he is no longer a death eater!" 

  
Hermione had put a stop to the howler then, face calm even as Ron started hissing at Harry. "What's mum on about, mate?" He'd said, quite and quick and kind. "Look, if you're fucking Malfoy or whatever, I don’t care, alright, just tell me, right mate? I've been through much worse."

  
Malfoy, as Ron was saying this, was scurrying out of the Great Hall to a tremendous amount of whispers, that cowardice still hot in his veins. Harry had scurried after him, to a shout from Ron and even more whispers. He had passed Ginny, who was vibrating with anger and had glared at him ferociously. Death eaters had killed her brother, she'd say, but she'd come round one day, over sangria in Grimmauld at Harry's nineteenth birthday. 

  
"You heard what she fucking said, Potter." Malfoy had said halfway through a tangent Harry had barely caught. "What's going to happen now, huh? You get disowned, face and reputation slashed around in newspapers. My mother will be so happy, you understand, for my reputation, her reputation will become polished once more, Potter, do you understand what I'm saying? Do you?"

  
"Er," Harry had said, eyes on Malfoy's flushed cheeks and red lips, crazed eyes. ,"no, not really. I, er, really don’t mind. Don’t care, to be honest. I, um, well- I may like you."

  
And Malfoy would have spun and muffled a scream in his palm here, looking at Harry like he was quite possibly the stupidest person on the face of the planet. "Do you not _remember_ marrying me, Potter? We may have been disastrously drunk and such and it took quite a while for me to remember, but good god. Potter. You really are a fool."

"I didn’t know if the message got across."

  
"You _married me_!" This Malfoy shouted and Harry grinned, for he loved to do this ever so, wind Malfoy up like this.

  
"Yes, yes. And I'd do it again, for the papers, headlines be damned." For he may had been drunk and joking the first time, but he had meant it, soft gazes hidden under crooked grins.

  
"Well." Malfoy (Potter) said here, short and clipped. His hand twitched, his body subconsciously leaned towards Harry, vulnerable. Trusting. "Yes. Well. I love you too."

  
"Yes." Harry said here, eyes darting from cheek to cheek to lip to cheek to lip. "Um, yeah. Yeah."

  
And perhaps Harry Potter was quite truly an idiot, and perhaps letters from enemies were erotic and romantic and perhaps, just perhaps, the line between hatred and love is quite thin, really. A piece of string, possibly, a piece of paper. A letter.


End file.
